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54 



MR. N. E. BJIOWN : NEW AND OLD 



oE the drawings luiving been made in the early part (January to March) of 



the rear ; for under our dull sunless winter skies much o£ the ^vliite deposit 



of lime disappears from their tissues during fliat season, and they often 



hecoine much c^reener than in summer time, when it is re-deposited and they 



resume their more glaucous-green or Avhitish hue, 



Soon after the period when these drawings were being made, the publication 

 of Salm-Dyck's Monograph of Mesembrtjanthemum commenced. This work 

 was issued in seven parts between 183G and 1863, It is splendidly illustrated 

 and the descriptions of the plants represented are excellent, but unfortunately 

 the nances and synonymy attaclicd to the plants figured in many cases do 

 not belon<i* to the species so well figured and so excellently described. This 

 was brouo-ht to my notice early in my career when I first came to Kew 



hilst naminfi- cultivated specimens of Mesemhryantliemvm \ I noticed that 



of the species figured by Salm-Dyck were different from the plants 



'* the same name that I had been familiar with at Reigate in the rich 



w 



some 



bearing 



collection of Mr. AV. Wilson Saunders, who had (about 18C5 and 18CG) over 

 300 species of Mesemlri/antltenttun in cultivation; some of them^ T was 

 informed were plants that were originally in Ilaworth's collection and 

 therefore presumably types of his species. This caused me to compare one 

 or two of Salm-DvcVs figures and descriptions with the original descrij)tions 

 tviven by Haworth and with the unpublished drawings of the plants at Kew, 



It became abundantly evident that mistakes of identification had been 

 made by Salm-Dyck ; and during subsequent years more and more of these 



identifications were discovered in the same manner. It is well known 

 that plants are often cultivated under w^rong names, and the only explanation 

 of Salni-Dyck's misidentifications that seems possible is, that he accepted as 

 correct the name under which the plant was cultivated on the Continent 

 without investi*>-ating the authenticity of that name^ As a few of these 



: it is in(^xplicable that Bergerj who 



w^hen 



wrong 



olarino* 



to o 



misidentifications are very 



certainly consulted the drawings at Kew, and Sender, who may or may not 



have done so, have both failed to detect any of them, but have accepted Salm- 



Dvck's identifications as being correct^ and in several cases have copied from 



the description given by Salm-Dyck and neglected or ignored .the original 



description given by Haworth, or have combined both, and sometimes added 



characters derived from dried specimens ; so that it occasionally happens 



that the name of the species in the monographs 



does not belong to the plant described under it^ and sometimes the description 



there ^nven includes characters distinctive of two or more species. 



Therefore, finding so much misunderstanding prevalent in books and 

 crardens with regard to many of Haw^orth's species, it seemed to me desirable 

 To call the attention of any future monographer of the gonus Mesemhvyanthemiim 

 to the necessity for a thorough revision of the nomenclature of all the species 



of Sonder and of Bergei 



i 



